Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Good morning! Today I have a layout to share with you that is featured in the summer issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today. What a beautiful, fun publication to be part of...I'm so thankful to have this summer fun layout featuring Webster's Pages included.

My layout features a variety of Webster's Pages collections - the patterned papers are from Best Friends, Sweet Notes and Composition & Color. I created an ombre effect with my papers by cutting triangles and stitching to make the chevron. The banner pieces also contribute to the ombre and all of the embellishments are monochromatic. And the photos are from one of our favorite places to go in the summer - the splash park!

Love the transparency, flower, doily and jewel - all from Webster's Pages

My photos are printed to 2x3 and a 4" square - perfect to fit on the banners!

Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back tomorrow to reveal my Gossamer Blue August kit layouts. Thanks for your comments on my news about joining the team! :)

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Hello again! Looks like I will be sharing my news earlier than I thought. I am so excited to announce that I am joining the Gossamer Blue design team! I was one of Gossamer Blue's first guest designers back in October and ever since then I have greatly admired Lori's kits. I do not scrapbook in a Project Life style but I am really excited for her new Life Pages kits that are debuting this month. I was able to incorporate a lot of items in the kit into my layouts.Here are a few sneak peeks of what I created with the August kits...I made five layouts and could have kept going. The first sneak is with the main kit only and the rest of my layouts incorporate all of the add-on kits.

I so loved creating these and can't wait to share them with you in the near future. There are so many amazing exclusives included in this month's kits - I went crazy over them! Patterned papers, journaling and feature cards, stamps and more!Thank you for letting me share my happy news!

Monday, July 29, 2013

Good morning! Today I have one last layout to share with you using the July kit from Scrapbook Circle. For this layout, I highlighted photos of our family reunion last summer with Glen's family. We also celebrated my in-laws 50th anniversary. This layout features a lot of Fancy Pants Designs' "Park Bench" collection.

Thanks for stopping by today! This was my last month on the Scrapbook Circle team. I had such a great time on the team and enjoyed working with their kits very much. I'll have some fun news to share with you later this week that I am very excited about!Have a great day! :)

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Good morning! I have another layout to share with you using the July kit at Scrapbook Circle. Last summer, we had a family reunion to celebrate Glen's parent's 50th anniversary and one of the fun activities we did was go to our local science center. My sister-in-law's kiddos were there too but daddy took a bunch of photos of just the girls as it was their first visit there. (Tomorrow, I'll share a two-page layout of our entire reunion experience and that one will have photos of everybody).

I did a lot of layering to build up the background using Crate Paper's DIY Shop collection and then added pops of red here and there.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Good morning! Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I have a project to share that I created for Emma's Paperie for a washi tape challenge. I typed up a summer bucket list earlier this summer and used the Mayberry collection from American Crafts to put this together. The washi tape is by Echo Park and I outlined the typed list with it.

I also placed one of the Mayberry pockets on the edge of the bucket list in case I needed a place for memorabilia, tickets, etc.

Sadly, we have not been able to cross much off but hopefully we will get a few more things crossed off soon. We definitely have not had the summer I thought we would!

I am so very thrilled to have been invited to stay on the American Crafts Design Team for another year! I had such a great year on the team and have loved working with American Crafts products. I am so humbled to be among such great talent! Looking forward to another wonderful year! Thanks for letting me share my excitement!

Friday, July 19, 2013

Happy Friday! Today is a very special day as Glen and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary! I'm so thankful and blessed that he is my husband and is such a great dad to our girls. Back when we got married, I thought that maybe perhaps we would be celebrating our 10th anniversary on the beaches of Hawaii. Sadly, that dream is not to be. But my new stove and microwave arrive Tuesday. Ha! Gotta be practical, you know!? :)

Today's layout is for a sketch challenge at Emma's Paperie and features the Travel Girl collection from October Afternoon. "The magic line" refers to the spot on the driveway where the girls cannot go past when they are playing outside. I wanted to be sure to document this moment of their childhood. I had a spot I could not go past when I was a kid too.

This collection has a lot of fun elements - stickers, flair, etc.

And I'm still loving the gold glitter star stickers from Studio Calico.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Good morning! I'm a little behind in sharing some of my latest Emma's Paperie projects so I hope to do that over the next few days. The first one was for a summer color challenge and I used mostly Crate Paper's Pier collection on this one. We have a zoo pass (which we aren't really getting much use out of lately) and these are all photos from my phone about a trip earlier this summer.

I love the slide frames in this collection! What a fun way to showcase photos!

A lot of fun little bits here - a pinwheel and tags. The stars are by Studio Calico.

For a complete supply list, please visit the Emma's Paperie blog here.
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Thanks for stopping by today! It's going to be a hot one here - 95 with a heat index of over 100. Yikes! Stay cool! :)

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Good morning! Today I have one more layout to share with you using Simple Stories new collections. This one is called December Documented and I LOVE it! I am a sucker for Christmas collections though and this one is just amazing! I adore the chalkboard accents (Simple Stories had this in their summer collection too and it made for some very cute projects). We have a tradition at our house that the girls make Christmas cut-out cookies with their grandma and me. Because of their food allergies, we can't do it the traditional way but I am still excited that I was able to find a way for them to do this. I have a lot of memories of making cut-out cookies as I was growing up and I want them to do so as well.

Love that chalkboard/snowflake background paper. I love the bright green and blue in this collection as well!

I love using Simple Stories cards - makes it so easy and quick!

I hope you have enjoyed this sneak preview of Simple Stories new collections! They are all great but the Christmas one is definitely my favorite! Have a great day! :)

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Good morning! Today I am sharing a layout I created using Simple Stories second new release called "Smarty Pants." This is such an adorable school collection! As my girls are just 4, we don't really have school photos of them but I created this layout and the journaling all about their future education. (We are still making decisions about what we are doing for preschool this fall.) So, this photo tugs at my heartstrings a bit....sniff. ;) (By the way, the photo was taken at our local apple orchard. They have an old schoolhouse that is really fun!)

I love the pencil background paper and the "ABC" border is so cute! Love those apples as well!

This collection is great for any age! I have some ideas for layouts that are not school related as well!

Thanks for stopping by today! Tomorrow, it's going to look a lot like Christmas around here! ;)

Monday, July 15, 2013

Good morning! Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I am very excited to share a layout I created with one of Simple Stories new releases (called Say Cheese) for the upcoming summer show. This collection was created with amusement park visits in mind but I chose to create my layout with an everyday moment. We had just come home from lots of 4th of July fun so I used a couple of photos of the girls doing sparklers. This collection is definitely versatile!

This collection has a lot of great stickers and chipboard embellishments as well as brads!

I love using Simple Stories basic labels for my layouts too! They are great for journaling!

Stay tuned! I will have more Simple Stories fun to share over the next few days! :)

Friday, July 12, 2013

Good morning! Today I have another two-page layout to share with you all that was featured in the July/August issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. For this layout, I worked with Webster's Pages "Sweet Notes" collection by Allison Kreft and some beautiful flair from A Flair for Buttons. Last summer, we went to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha for the first time with the girls. I.LOVE.THIS.ZOO! They have so many more animals and attractions than our little zoo in Des Moines. We went with my family so we had a lot of fun with everyone!

I forgot to take detail shots of this one so you will get to see pages one and two up close and personal this time. I turned the flair into balloons for the title and did a little hand-stitching with twine. The journaling is tucked into one of the little bags from the Sweet Notes collection and pulls out by the fabric tab (Basic Grey).

And here I was able to to create a grid with the journaling cards and transparency cards to showcase some of our favorite animals that we saw on our trip.

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you all have a great weekend! More projects to come soon! :)

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Good morning! I created this layout for one of my monthly American Crafts projects and it was very quick to put together because of the patterned paper I used for my background from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm collection.

We took these photos of the girls this spring with the daffodils and it turned into a lesson about sharing that was really cute. If you have more than one kiddo, you know that learning to share is an everyday effort. And with twins, it can be more of an issue. The girls have a built-in best friend and a built-in "enemy" - ha! Nora has mastered epic pouting - girl turns around and puts her head down dejectedly and walks away. Gets me every time! :) So these photos are just too sweet to me and I'm so happy this was a moment captured.

Besides the background paper, everything else on this layout is stickers and embellishments!

Lots of bits and pieces here to make this fun - mostly Lucky Charm!

Thanks for visiting today! I have been so miserable the past few days with a head cold. Just as I thought I was turning a corner with the vertigo I have had for 5 weeks, bam - let's throw something else into the equation! I also have one sick with a high fever, and I am hoping and praying number two does not get it too. So, our house is not a lot of fun right now. I hate colds anytime of the year but there is something about a summer cold that makes me want to throw a pity party for myself. :)

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Good morning! Today I have a two-page layout and a bonus layout to share with you that was published in the July/August 2013 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. This layout features last summer's collection by Simple Stories and a fun adventure we had picking blueberries one day.

Copyright 2013 by Creating Keepsakes. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

Simple Stories makes it easy to create layouts with their cards that are quick to add photos and minimal embellishments!

Creating Keepsakes asked me if I would recreate the second (right-hand) page of my layout and show how it could be placed in a Sn@p pocket page. This one was also quick to do! A little minor adjusting and I basically had the same effect for my photos. I definitely want to do more scrapbooking this way!

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Good morning! Today I have my first layout to share with the July kit from Scrapbook Circle called "Let's Chat!" For this layout, I highlighted photos that we took on Father's Day with my dad. The Jillibean Soup kraft placemat was perfect for the smaller photos I cropped of grandpa with the grandkids.

I backed the openings with patterned paper, did some stitching and embellished here and there. Love the Jenni Bowlin silver feather rub-ons and the Crate Paper washi paper!

This month's kit also includes Scrapbook Circle exclusive stickers like the "smile" one I used here.

Monday, July 08, 2013

Good morning! I have a lot of projects to share with you coming up but today wanted to share a couple that I made for patriotic week on the American Crafts blog. I picked out my favorite red, white and blue products to make this layout celebrating the 4th of July last year. There is a lot of Lucky Charm and Mayberry on both of these along with some silver POW! glitter paper.

To create the bunting on the top right corner, I punched banner pieces with a Jenni Bowlin punch and layered them. I punched a star and then threaded a button with twine and adhered that to the bunting.

I love creating layouts with a lot of photos and I printed these out to be about 2" and then made square collages. I embellished them with stickers and clothespins.

For the card, I backed a Lucky Charm die-cut card with gingham patterned paper (from Mayberry) and silver glitter paper. I tied twine around the patterned paper mason jar and embellished with a punched star, button and puffy sticker.

Thanks for stopping by today! We just got home after 4 days at my mom and dad's to discover our air conditioner was out. Our house is currently 85 degrees and we have a repairman here now. We're hoping it's going to be a quick fix.